


It Always Happens This Way

by sevdrag (seventhe)



Series: Dumpsterverse [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Hawkeye (Comics), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Defenders (Marvel TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: (They Need Their Bad Flirting First), (This Is Going To Be Like the Snake Family Fic All Over Again), (fuck), Actual Disaster Jessica Jones, Another Case Of The Author Thinks She's Funny, Bucky Barnes Isn't Sure Why He Is Here, Deaf Clint Barton, Dumpsterverse, Eventual Relationships, F/F, F/M, Frank Castle Is Done With Everyone's Shit, Heavy Drinking, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Inappropriate Humor, Let's Get At 'Er, M/M, References to Letterkenny (TV), absolute garbage, disaster bisexuals, inappropriate everything, pitter patter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:28:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22137826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhe/pseuds/sevdrag
Summary: When they aren't out fighting crime and saving New York City, the superheroes who call the Big Apple home are...Well, they're fucking disasters. Almost all of them. These are their non-superhero stories.[Each chapter is its own stand-alone episode. With apologies to Letterkenny, every Marvel fandom that exists, and my own dignity. Also Frank. Sorry, Frank, you don't deserve this.]
Relationships: Frank Castle/Matt Murdock, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Dumpsterverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775665
Comments: 44
Kudos: 160





	1. Enter The Dumpsterverse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feathers_and_cigarettes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feathers_and_cigarettes/gifts).



> so uhhhhhhhhhhhh
> 
> I need to entirely blame my Murder Husband Feathers for this, an idea borne of many late-night drunken MCU TV-watching sessions that evolved into a universe where we can let _everyone_ show their true disaster colors. Our favorites are always the dumb fucking idiots with garbage tendencies. Time to let them shine.
> 
> Relationships have not been established yet, but there will be eventual Winterhawk (Bucky/Clint) and Fratt (Frank/Matt). Other relationships may show up if I feel like it! I don't know! Suggest it!
> 
> Each chapter is meant to be a standalone "episode", so while this looks like an "unfinished" WIP, it's just based on how many episodes I can write before someone launches themselves through the internet and strangles my dumb ass.
> 
> I'm sorry but I'm not. Welcome to the Dumpsterverse.

**Chapter One: Enter The Dumpsterverse, or A Couple of Hydras Came Round The Dumpster Today**

\------

“So, couple of Hydra came round today,” comes from the dumpster. 

“You don’t say.” Frank’s got his hands in his pockets, leaning up against the brick wall across the narrow alleyway. He hadn’t been available when the call went out. Looks like a good scrap; there are multiple bodies on the ground, not just Jones. 

“Came round trying to recruit Barton,” says the second dumpster voice. Frank rolls his eyes. Of course Red’s in there, too. Always ends up this way. 

First voice - Barton - snorts. “Yeah, recruiting me with a sniper shot to the head.”

“For a bad time, call Hydra,” says Murdock.

“The beatings aren’t voluntary.”

“Join and you too can have bullets. In your body.”

“Our health plan is very affordable.”

Another snort. “You’ll die when you see our benefits.”

“Alright,” says Frank. He pushes himself off the wall and deigns to look into the dumpster. 

Barton, of course, is sprawled out on his back in the trash. He’s got his head pillowed on a black plastic bag, his legs propped up against the side. “Hey, Castle.”

Across from him, Red’s perched on the back of an armchair that probably has three more diseases than it has springs left. Murdock has the bottle - the traditional after-battle whiskey - and offers it up to Frank with a crooked grin. Fuck, the bastard’s been drinking for a while. Red shouldn’t look this good surrounded by trash.

Frank takes the whiskey, and allows himself a _very_ long pull. “So, just you two?”

“An’ me,” says a voice from the ground behind him. Frank turns around. It really _is_ Jones, sprawled face-down on the pavement. She has her _own_ bottle - as usual - and it’s half empty (as usual). “Had some fun.” 

Frank rubs his hand down his face. “So Hydra was here.” He passes the bottle back into Barton’s grabby hands.

“Yeah, no worries.” Barton drinks from the bottle, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and passes it back to Murdock. “We hauled their asses back to the Stone Age.”

“Pitched their asses off a cliff.”

“Sent them back to the dinosaurs.”

“Big ol’ T-Rex lunch,” says Jones, not moving from her spot.

“Down into the deeps.”

“Back to the future.”

“Lost in space.”

“Star Wars,” Jones adds again, getting the spirit of the game if not the actual rules.

“I fucking hate you all,” Frank says, but when Red offers him the bottle again, he certainly doesn’t say no.

———

Josie’s is surprisingly packed that night. It’s weird, because Clint still occasionally thinks Josie’s is in Bed-Stuy, especially when he’s drinking; he’ll look around and think, _Why are these people out? Hydra was here today,_ only to realize that he ain’t in Brooklyn anymore. Problem is, since they all started hanging out and drinking at Josie’s, word had got around and there are recognizable Bed-Stuy faces here, too: people that have followed them here to Hell’s Kitchen. Clint needs to stop being so recognizable.

He also needs to stop being drunk, but that ain’t gonna happen any time soon.

Josie’s been giving them half-price shots since she seems to know there was some kinda blowout. It’s probably because of the black eye Clint’s sporting and the cut along Matt’s cheekbone - Clint knows how carefully Josie watches Matt’s cheekbones, _fuck_ \- but it’s also just Josie, hoping her half-Avenger crowd’s gonna bring her in some business.

Clint ain’t even sure Buck’s even gonna show up, so he’s been drinking as heavily as Jess - who had sobered up on the short walk over here, but is now professionally working on her second round - because he doesn't want to be too obviously disappointed. People keep challenging him to darts, and he keeps trying to refuse, except that somehow he ends up standing there, blindfolded and turned around with three bulls-eyes. Not all of it makes sense.

“You know who I am, right?” Clint asks, despairingly, as the third in a line of bros decides to challenge Hawkeye to a game of darts. “This really isn’t fair.”

“Their money,” says Jess, who’s slumped into a chair up against the wall to watch Clint dominate the competition. She turns to the bros and gives them a sloppy smile. “Y’all know that’s Iron Fist, right?”

“I hate you,” Clint says, and allows himself to be blindfolded and turned about and otherwise distracted - he does at least one burpee - and then, based on the sounds from the bar and Jess’s breathing, aligns himself and throws three more bullseyes.

“How about you, darlin’?” One of the bros has made the mistake of addressing Jess. 

“Dude,” Clint says hastily, “just don’t,” but Jess is already standing up, bottle of whiskey in hand. Clint doesn’t know how she always has a bottle, but she does; he suspects Josie’s involved. 

She reaches out for the guy’s beer; bemused, he hands it to her. She pours the entire thing down her throat in less time than it would take Clint to spell his name, then crushes the can in her fist; she continues to crush it, over and over, until it’s about the size of a marble, as she follows it with a long whiskey chaser.

Jess offers the tiny marble of metal to the bros, and they obediently leave.

“You’re a beast,” Clint says, admiringly. Jess just belches at him. She’s great.

Buck still isn’t here. Clint looks around. He and Jess have ended up in the back corner; Matt and Frank are still up at the bar, partaking in half-price shots, Matt running his flirty mouth as usual without realizing that Frank would absolutely eat him up given the chance. They’re _almost_ as bad as he and Buck are, but Clint’s sure his own flirting owns its own gold medal in _being terrible._

He’s turning back to Jess, about to offer to throw darts with his toes, when he sees them. 

Goddamnit.

The Maximoff twins - Wanda and Pietro - are here, boisterously drunk on their own favorite shitty beer, and Clint suddenly has to become invisible because they both have a crush on him and he cannot fucking take it.

“Wanda!” Jess yells, and Clint literally puts his face into his hands. He needs to stop underestimating the drunken monster that is Jessica Jones. By the time he surfaces she’s grinning at him, because of course she knows. Clint gives her a little annoyed bow and sticks his tongue out at her.

The fucking Maximoff twins approach, both of them wearing wide grins. Jess slouches back in her chair, one arm splayed over the back, and Clint watches as both Wanda and Pietro do a double-take at the lines of her. Jess is slim and buff at the same time and somehow she remains so while drinking enough alcohol to kill an elephant. Clint credits it to her whatever power. It’s as good an explanation as any.

“Look at this,” Pietro drawls, or as well as he can with the remnants of his accent. “I’ve found the dessert menu. We’ve got a vanilla cupcake,” he gestures at Clint, and then turns to Jess. “And an entire tray of tiramisu.”

“Delicious,” says Wanda. She’s the less obnoxious of the two; her role here is mostly to wind Pietro up, although she’s got a couple zingers in her every time they end up meeting. She pitches herself against the bar, straightening out until she looks like an awkward model. “One of each, then?”

“Let’s split,” says Pietro, dragging his eyes down Clint and back up in a gesture Clint thinks he can feel. “We can share, yes?”

“There’s enough to go around.”

“Double servings.”

“The bird in the hand, bro,” Wanda says, and they do a weird fistbump. Clint tries not to roll his eyes. 

“Push to the bush!” Pietro yells, and they do the fistbump again. The twins have private jokes for days. They haven’t yet realized that no one else finds them funny, because no one else has any idea what the fuck they’re talking about.

“Go away,” says Clint. His beer is empty and he suddenly needs twelve of those half-priced shots. 

“How’s it _rolling,_ ” says Jess, who thinks she’s hilarious.

“It’s been good,” Pietro says. “Been resting, yeah. Resting like the enemy. So much resting.”

“What,” Clint says, not a question. He tries to catch Frank’s eye; Frank is with it enough to help a brother out with a shot. Or twelve. Unfortunately, it looks like Frank has had twelve shots himself and is busy looking besotted in Matt’s general direction. 

“We’re just hanging out, nice and easy,” Pietro continues. “You know. The resting. The spending of time.”

“The wasting of space?” Wanda offers, and Pietro grins at her.

“The chilling, you know.”

“Chillin’ like a villain?” Clint literally wants to shove his beer bottle into his eye socket. 

“Yes!” Pietro’s up in his space now, fist extended. “Yes. Don’t leave it hangin’, bro.”

“No.”

“Bad luck, bro,” Wanda says. She takes another sip of her beer. “Gotta smash the stash.”

“Hit the bit.”

“Slam the spam.”

“A punch to the bunch.”

“A slap and a tap.”

“Bada-bing, Bada-boom.”

“Boom boom pow.”

“Clint,” says Pietro, “you are so two thousand and late,” and he waggles his fingers in Clint’s direction. 

“I fucking hate you,” Clint says to Jess, and abandons her with the twins to go seek asylum at the bottom of a bottle of half-priced shots.

———

Three days later, they’re at the bar where Luke works now, a classy place called _Kaylee’s_ at the better edges of Hell’s Kitchen. Classy-ish, really, Jessica thinks; their bar is intact and the floors are clean and they have actual tables and real food. Her standards are low, she knows, but it’s also that Luke just looks good behind a bar. She’s proud of him for coming here after everything, and he’s doing well for himself. 

It’s most of them, this time. Danny’s up at the bar, trying to stuff himself between Clint and Barnes, interrupting their usual awkward flirting; over at the table they’ve claimed, Matt and Frank aren’t doing much better. Wanda and Pietro are sitting at the other end of the bar, murmuring and taking a disturbing number of photos. Karen’s here, and Foggy, and Claire, but they have their own table and look like they’re thirty seconds away from heading out. Jessica can’t blame them; they’re up to their usual nonsense. 

Kaylee, the owner, knows that Luke’s a reluctant part of this crew, and she knows when they start showing up in large numbers that it’s best for her to just call it an early night and leave Luke to close up. As much as they’re all disasters, they take care of their own. Mostly. 

That doesn’t mean they don’t, well, enjoy themselves in the meantime. Jessica’s sitting on the bar, kicking her legs in the air, leaning back a bit. She can feel Luke at her back, a steady hustle behind her, fetching beverages as he goes. She knows there’s a guy called Caleb back in the kitchen, who’s so overwhelmed having a bunch of Defenders and other superheroes in the place that he’s willing to work overtime: which is great, cause Clint alone has eaten three entire plates of fries. Caleb made the third one a double and he’d still eaten them. She’s really not sure where he puts it. 

There’s a familiar clinking behind her, and Jessica turns to grin lazily at Luke, who’s lining up shot glasses. It’s enough for everybody here and then some, which means they’re about to play the game, and that makes her laugh.

He smiles up at her, on her perch. She’s just glad that they get to have this.

Luke starts pouring. They’ve all settled on Crown Royal as a shot everyone can do without any gagging, horking, or yelling. It’s a shame, cause Crown’s expensive, but that’s the least of their worries. Normally when they start buying, like, twenty shots at a time, bars start giving them a discount. 

“Hey!” Jessica yells. The bar falls into a wary silence. “Step up, it’s time for _games._ ”

There’s some grumbling and some cheering as everyone rearranges themselves at the bar. The twins shift down, and it looks like Claire really doesn’t want to play, but Foggy and Matt drag her up regardless. They’re all a bunch of easy enablers here, although nobody forces booze on anybody else: unspoken rule.

Pietro reaches out and snags a shot; he slurps it down dramatically, and Wanda films him before turning to film the booing from the rest of the crowd. It’ll probably end up on Instagram. “Penalty, you boner,” Jessica says. 

“You wish,” Pietro says easily, flashing teeth. “Is there an interest in my manly sword?”

“Your flesh rod,” Wanda suggests.

“Length of pleasure.”

“Alright,” Jessica says, a little louder than usual. “Line up for it, y’all. Pietro took the penalty, he has to start.”

Everyone groans, again, but Jessica grins and she can hear Luke’s low chuckle behind her. Pietro looks elated.

“Would you rather,” Pietro says, drawing it out dramatically. Wanda punches him in the shoulder. Jessica punches him in the other shoulder.

“Would you rather have one nipple or two belly buttons?”

It produces a number of groans from the crowd, and some muttering as people start talking to themselves. Then, the debate begins.

“Nipples are sensitive,” says Clint, giving everyone else at the bar personal information they would have preferred stayed private. Only Bucky looks slightly intrigued, although he hides it by rolling his eyes. “What’s two belly buttons up against keeping both nipples?”

“Nipples are useless,” says Frank. “On guys, anyway.”

“Double belly,” Pietro says, as sure as anything. He glances at Wanda, who nods.

“Twice the tickle,” she replies.

“Two spots, two knots,” Pietro says, and Jessica has to admit it’s a bit clever, although she hates it.

“Ace in the hole,” says Wanda, and they fistbump again.

“Alright,” Jessica yells, drawing everyone’s attention back. “Is everybody decided?”

She gets some nods, some yells, and poor Claire is just shaking her head and throwing her hands up in the air; maybe it’s too much to ask a medical professional their nipple-belly button preference, but hey, she’s here.

“One,” Jessica counts, “two, three!”

The simultaneous yelling makes belly buttons the clear winner, mainly based on the way Clint hollers “I NEED MY NIPS!” over everyone else. “Alright,” says Luke, “who picked one nipple?”

Frank, Matt, and - to her surprise - Karen all slouch up to the bar and do their penalty shots. 

“Karen.” Jessica calls her out mainly because she enjoys when Karen gets a little sloshed. “Your turn.”

To her surprise Karen’s ready. She’s always so quick. “Would you rather have giant hands or giant feet!” 

Jessica can hear Claire’s groan. “Oh my god,” Claire says to no one in particular. “I’ll do a shot, just let me sit this one out.”

“Big hands,” Clint starts. “Big fingers.”

“Get your head out of the gutter,” Bucky says, although he looks like hes thinking the same thing, the way he smirks.

“For my _bow,”_ Clint shoots back. “Get _your_ head out of the dumpster.”

“Big hands hold a bigger bat,” says Matt.

“You’d trip over big feet,” Danny points out.

“Big stompin’, though.” Frank grins at him, the one Jessica has seen on his face right before he launches into a bar fight. It’s hilarious.

“You know what they say about a man with big feet,” Pietro begins, and Bucky groans.

“What do they say, bro?” Wanda’s head is tilted as if she has no idea. As if. 

“Big feet mean he’s gifted in another area.”

“Trouser power?”

“Snake in the shorts.”

Clint can’t help but join in. “Big man in the briefs.”

“Thunder down under.”

“Whole herd of pigs,” Matt adds. Jessica isn’t sure whether Matt just doesn’t get the game, or if he says nonsense on purpose.

“Christ,” says Foggy.

“Oh, you’ll say his name plenty,” Pietro calls back, making a horribly awkward gesture with his hips.

“I need my hands,” says Claire. “Big feet it is.”

Karen meets her eye. “Big feet and bigger heels?”

“Hell yeah.”

Jessica turns around to glance at Luke. He’s leaning up against the bar, observing, sipping at his own gin-and-gin-and-tonic. It’s faint, but there’s a smile on his face.

“Okay,” Jessica calls. “Ready, on the count of three, yell hands or feet, alright?”

———

“Couple’a more Hydra came through today,” Barnes says from his seat on the edge of the dumpster as Frank approaches.

“Turns out those Hydras was actually scouts,” Jones slurs from her normal spot face-down on the concrete. 

Frank peeks inside. This time Murdock and Barton are both sprawled out on their backs, heads propped up on what looks like a stanky bedroll of some sort. “You two are terrible,” Frank tells them. 

“Clint fell in,” says Murdock. “I’m just here to keep him company.”

“And that’s what I appreciates about you,” Jones calls, propping herself up long enough to grin wildly.

“I did fall in,” Barton says a bit sheepishly. “Buck got here first, but he just laughed.”

“As the one not in the dumpster,” Barnes points out, “I’ve retained all laughing privileges.” He takes a long swig from the bottle, and then passes it to Frank. He shrugs and takes a drink himself. 

“Excuse you,” Murdock says from the bottom of the dumpster. “I climbed in here willingly to help a friend. I demand the right to laughing privileges of my own.”

Barnes frowns, looking thoughtful. “True, but you’re still lying on actual garbage. Half privileges.”

“I could debate you down,” Murdock says, using his professional lawyer-voice.

“Nope,” says Barnes, popping the _p_ with relish. “I’d just start laughing, and I have full privileges.”

Frank hands the bottle down to Murdock, who’s gesturing at him for it. 

“What about Castle?” Barton stretches out and pillows his head on his hands. “He didn’t even show up. No privileges.”

“True,” Bucky repeats himself, “but he is also not the one lying in actual trash. He gets partial privileges.”

“Limited laughing rights.” Murdock nods, as if anything about this conversation makes sense. “Like… a chuckle. Maybe two.”

“I retain my rights to punch your faces in!” Jones yells from the pavement.

“Don’t worry, JJ, you’ve got equal rights,” Barnes calls back. “Equal opportunity laughers here, we are.” It seems to settle her. Frank watches as she stumbles to her feet and takes a few slouchy steps, trusty bottle in hand, to come join them by the dumpster.

“Extra rights for not touching the dumpster,” she announces.

Barnes shakes his head. “Jones, you slept in the _street._ ”

“Did not,” Jones says, but then glances back over her shoulder. “Wasn’t sleeping,” she concedes with a grumble.

“So,” Barnes says, very logically, waving at the spot. “Trash.”

“Trash-ish,” Jones argues back. 

“Trash adjacent,” pipes up Matt, who sits up to hand the bottle back to Barnes, then collapses back into the dumpster next to Clint. Frank winces, and hopes Matt doesn’t catch it.

“Diet trash,” Barton says, and Jones bares her teeth at him, but Murdock is laughing.

“Trash lite.”

“Baby trash.” Jones bares her teeth at Barton again.

“Kids’ menu trash,” says Murdock, through his laughter, and Frank snorts.

“Limited privileges,” Barnes intones, and Jones finally looks satisfied.

There’s a long moment of silence, while they simply pass the bottle around and contemplate the meaning of life. Jones offers Frank her bottle, an unusual gesture. Frank doesn’t have it in him to refuse. Barnes shuts his eyes and sighs, long and drawn-out.

“So can somebody actually help me out of the dumpster?” Clint finally asks, a little annoyed. “I think I sprained my elbow.”


	2. Live, Laugh, Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i make absolutely no apologies for this fic. bye.

“So Murdock has this poster in his office,” Clint is telling Frank when Bucky gets back with three beers tucked into his shiny arm. 

“Okay,” Frank says slowly, obviously not understanding the importance of this statement.

“But it isn’t — it’s a secret.” Clint leans forward and gives Frank that wiggly eyebrow thing he does when he wants to seem clever. Honestly, to Bucky, it looks like a caterpillar earthquake, but since that isn’t the kind of thing you say to the dumpster fire you’re - despite all of your better judgment - trying to hit, he says nothing. 

Bucky distributes the bottles and then takes his seat again. “You can ignore him at any point, Castle,” he says, while reaching out to dully clink his beer against the other two. This one had been a fairly quick call - Matt in the courtroom and Jessica, surprisingly, with an actual client - so the three of them had wiped Bed-Stuy of whatever gang thought they could follow the Russian tracksuits. 

Bucky appreciates Frank Castle, in that dark sort of way when someone who has seen violence recognizes someone else with that same vein running through them. There’s a lot to say about the Punisher, but a lot of it got said about the Winter Soldier too, and while they’ve never talked about it, both of them know enough about the other to feel a sort of kinship. 

Frank’s frowning at Clint right now, but in the way that says he’s amused rather than confused. “There’s a poster in Red’s office,” he says, carefully, “but it’s a secret.”

“Yeah,” Clint says, and then: “I mean no, no. It isn’t a secret. Matt knows it’s there.”

“This is the worst story you’ve ever told,” Bucky tells Clint, conversationally.

Clint shakes his head. “It really isn’t. What about the one with the bartender and the three Nazis? You’d said that was groundbreaking.”

Bucky considers for a moment, and then cedes ground. “This is the second worst story you’ve ever told, Barton.”

Clint grins up at him, beaming, all loose-drunk and happy with it. Bucky wants to grab that smile and suck it out of Clint’s mouth. Instead, he raises his beer to his lips, to disguise the impulse.

“Right,” Frank says, with a slow glance between the two of them that tells Bucky he isn’t nearly as subtle as he wants to be. Which might be good, because Clint is an oblivious motherfucker. “So the poster is not a secret except that it is?”

“Just look, man,” Clint says, slouching back against the bar. “If you’re ever in his office, you’ll get it.”

“Why would I go to Red’s office?” Frank asks, bemused, and Clint smirks and does the caterpillar eyebrow again. Some days Bucky yells at himself for being set on such a tire fire.

“Cause you got the _hots_ for him,” Clint sing-songs, and Frank’s face goes carefully casual, and Bucky - recognizing the look a man gets when mocked for having a crush on a disaster - quickly signals for a round of shots.

———

Matt Murdock has a picture hanging in his office.

Barton gave it to him, which meant he’d been wary from the beginning, but enough people had told him it was just a lovely little print saying _Live, Laugh, Love_ with some flowers on it. Barton probably thought he wouldn’t be man enough to hang it up, so Matt did. Immediately. (Well, Foggy did. Same thing.)

Actually, Barton probably nicked it out of a dumpster. Oh well. Matt’s probably lucky it doesn’t smell.

The thing is, when people walk into his office, about half of them give a little snort or a snicker or a giggle or — something. The half that don’t are the ones coming for his legal services: they smell of anxiety, or worry, their steps lighter and more tentative, their approach desperate. It’s never those people; they don’t have eyes for anything except his face. Matt hones in on their body heat from the second they step through the door, and he doesn’t think of anything else.

But the other half - Foggy, almost every time. Karen. Barton, when he drops in. Barnes, when he’s with Barton. Other business associates, coming to drop a hint or share the tea. Folks coming to try to talk him into something, trying to con his services out of him: they nearly always have some kind of breath, just for a moment.

The thing is, with his friends, it’s become a joke. Foggy tells him every time it says _Live, Laugh, Buttsex,_ which it obviously doesn’t. Karen says it’s just _Live Laugh Love_ and she’s only laughing at how odd it is to see in Matt’s office. Barton, the absolute motherfucker, has read him multiple versions - _Live Laugh Like, Live Laugh Four Loko, Live Laugh Lick_ \- although the way Matt can literally _feel_ Barnes rolling his eyes tells him that this is just Barton’s attempt at humor. Barton’s flirting is pretty terrible. Matt sometimes wants to buy Barnes a shot for the way he so stoically tolerates it.

It just — it occasionally makes him wonder. 

Mostly because a reporter came in today to try to talk to him about his latest case, and multiple times Matt clocked the movement of his face, his eyes, up to that fucking print on the wall he can blame Clint fucking Barton for. 

———

“So a couple of Hand assholes came by the office today,” Murdock says, from inside the dumpster.

“And yet you’re still—” Natasha gestures with one hand, trying to encompass the dumpster, the piles of garbage pushed up against the building walls, and - probably - Jones, having assumed her usual position, forehead eating pavement. It was a surprise to see Natasha, to be honest, but Frank has to admit the entire fight ended much more efficiently than usual. He only wishes he had been there to see it; he’d come in enough time to help with the wipe-up, but by that point, the battle had been settled.

“Well,” Barton says from the inside, “it’s tradition, Tasha.”

Natasha rolls her eyes so perfectly, Frank’s almost jealous. “I come to visit and end up watching you roll in garbage. Typical.”

“I’m not _rolling._ ” Barton’s voice sounds somewhat insulted. “I’m just, you know. Sitting.”

Natasha’s eyes go wide, just for a moment; Frank wouldn’t even have seen it if he hadn’t been watching very carefully.

“This is a first for me, Nat,” says Barnes, who had somehow also ended up in the dumpster. 

“That isn’t entirely true,” Murdock calls, and Frank can hear him shifting around, along with some kind of — liquid? Oh, gross. “He puts his feet in it.”

“He puts his feet in it,” Natasha repeats, with a growing sense of horror.

“So anyway,” Barton says, even louder. “A couple of Hand recruits came by the office today.”

“The hell were they doing in your office?” It comes out more gruff than Frank intended, but he just crosses his arms and shifts his weight to his other leg. 

“Recruiting,” says Barton.

“Hiring,” Murdock replies. “Signing bonus.”

“Interviewing.”

“They had a petition for me to sign.”

“Interloping,” Barnes says, but his heart really isn’t in it.

Barton starts snickering, and Frank can almost feel it when Murdock says, “Okay, what?”

“They were checking on your picture,” Barton gets out, around an immature amount of giggles.

“Oh my god,” Barnes stops, but is overtaken by Murdock jerking into an upright position and saying, “Barton, what the fuck?”

“Oh my god, I’m joking,” Barton says, but now Natasha’s laughing: quietly, it’s really just a collection of quick breaths, but it’s noticeable mainly because Natasha never laughs. 

“What does the sign say,” Murdock orders, with enough of his lawyer-voice in it that Frank gets a little weak in the knees at it.

“Live Laugh Love,” Barnes intones, as if he’s already bored with the entire exercise.

“Live, Laugh, Lick Me,” says Barton, still giggling.

“Live, Laugh, Lucifer,” Jones calls as she struggles to stand up. Oh, good, she’s back with them. Frank can never tell whether Jones lies there because she is: a) injured and healing; b) too drunk; c) ignoring the rest of them to have a nap; or d) some or all of the above. She’s a mystery. Frank loves her, but she makes no goddamn sense.

“I don’t believe this,” Natasha says, and Frank catches her gaze. They both shrug.

“Live, Laugh, Loose Lips,” Barton adds.

“Live, Laugh, Let it rip.” It’s obvious that Barnes is only playing along for Barton, but that’s kind of cute, in the creepy metal-armed murderer kind of way.

“Live, Laugh, Loosen up.”

“Live, Loser, Live.”

“Live, Laugh, Lasagne.”

“Eat, Shit, Die,” Frank says, because he’s trying to catch Murdock off guard. Everyone else bursts into laughter, and he can hear Matt say, distinctly, “You’ve never even been to my office, you fuck.”

“Live, Laugh, Lose your goddamn mind,” Natasha drones. “Out, Barton. You promised me martinis.”

“Yes, ma’am,” says Barton, and he does one of his flashiest somersault-flips to emerge from the dumpster, bowing at the end.

“Live, Laugh, Loser,” Jones yells at him, and Frank laughs again.

———

That night they’re all at Nora’s. It’s their Bed-Stuy bar of choice; a step above a shithole in the ground only because Nora has a few _standards_ like clean bathrooms and working trash cans. Clint might be low-key in love with Nora, really, although it doesn’t make a difference because he’s low-key in love with a lot of things and high-key in love with Bucky fucking Barnes. 

But Nora makes martinis that even Nat approves of. Clint can tell by the way her eyes go wide as she sips the first one entirely down, olive and all, and he loves her for it. Natasha should come visit them more often, except that she’s kind of opposed to the whole dumpster thing.

He’s sitting between Frank and Matt, which is probably a mistake. Nat’s next to Frank, Bucky on her far side; Jessica is on Matt’s other side. At the moment, they’re all just sitting and drinking, not much conversation going on. 

“See,” Jessica says out of nowhere, “if I were gonna hang a sign in Matt’s office, it would say something different.”

“Hey,” Clint says, knee-jerk, because that piece of artwork is one of his most awesome victories. “What’s better than Live, Laugh, Love?”

Nora slouches into the bar across from them. She’s sinew and angles, happily buzzed herself. “For Matty? Hmmm. Lawyer jokes, probably.”

“How does an attorney sleep?” Clint asks. 

“Oh, good lord,” Frank mutters beneath his breath, and Clint ignores him.

“Sleeps like an angel, he’s already given the devil his due,” Bucky says unexpectedly, and then they’re off. 

“Sleeps like a dog,” Jessica says. “Worked to death and only got bones to chew.”

“Like a cheap suit,” Clint says, “loose and easy,” and Matt actually punches his shoulder for it, although he’s also trying not to laugh.

“Covers his ass with every blanket statement he can find,” Frank says, and everyone takes a second to murmur to themselves, because that’s actually pretty good. Nat’s biting her lip, trying to avoid smiling in public.

“No,” Clint says finally. “He _lies_ on one side, and then he _lies_ on the other side.”

The bar groans. “Nora,” Matt says, gesturing. “This man needs enough shots that he stops speaking entirely.”

“On it, Your Honor,” Nora says with a wink, and Matt lets his head sink down onto the bar.

———

This time the call comes out close enough to Frank where he can signal down his foreman and slip out the back to get to the fight. The foreman, Jimmy, don’t necessarily _know_ he’s the Punisher, but he doesn’t necessarily _not think_ Frank is the Punisher, and Frank’s found Jimmy’s grateful enough to have him on the crew that he overlooks Frank’s extracurriculars. It’s kinda nice, really, having it said without being said.

Except this time he shows up to the fight with handguns in both hands and it’s just fuckin _Red,_ facing off against — at this point Frank has no fuckin’ idea whether it’s Hydra or AIM or the Hand or the goddamn tracksuits, all he knows is that people are shooting at Murdock and Frank really, really doesn’t like when they do that.

His first blast sprays across the - front line, Frank thinks, although it’s really less like any kind of organized attack and more just like — “The fuck, Red,” he says, as he slides in beside Murdock, currently huddled behind a storage compartment. “What is this, you versus the mob?”

Murdock grins up at him, and Frank - not for the first time - wants to lick that smugness off his fucking face. “They don’t sound very elite, do they?”

_God,_ but Frank’s gone on this crazy motherfucker. It’s stupid. It’s unfair. “Not good enough to keep up with us,” he says instead, extending some kind of opening, and he’s surprised to see Murdock’s face go alight with it. For a long moment Frank’s glad Matt can’t see the expression _he’s_ making in response, because he’s sure it’s some murderous gesture of choked-up affection.

“Who is,” Matt murmurs, and his hand comes up - to brush against Frank’s cheek, really, _now_ they’re gonna do this? - but then Red grins and his hands settle onto Frank’s shoulders as he somersaults over him, and Frank swears out loud.

It’s true that whatever crowd this is isn’t prepared for Daredevil and the Punisher both. They’ve learnt to fight together in a way that’s intimately devastating on one too many levels. Frank fires, and fires again, as Murdock smashes in faces at close range. Rather than reloading Frank stalks forward, aware that he’s intimidating as fuck and drawing on that, and pistol-whips the fucker in front of him who’d been shot in the leg. 

There are three of them left when Frank hears the cough of a sniper rifle, and Murdock’s head twists to track the bullet as it lands in the poor fucker in front of them. Two arrows follow in swift succession, and Frank follows their trajectory backwards to catch the brief silhouette of Barnes and Barton on a rooftop. He gives them a lazy salute, two fingers flicking in the general vicinity of his forehead, and Barton returns it sardonically. Barnes flips them off. Murdock laughs, and yanks off the stupid cowl on his stupid suit, so that Frank can see all of his stupid beautiful face. 

“Does this mean we have to buy them drinks?”

Frank realizes he’s grinning, fiercely, the way he always is when he gets to fight with Red. “Not if we get there first,” he tells Murdock, and is - surprised - when Matt’s hand flashes out to grab at Frank’s elbow.

“Let’s run,” says Murdock, his fingers wrapping around Frank’s arm. Frank knows explicitly that Murdock doesn’t need Frank’s guidance to get to Josie’s. He’s seen Red make it there in less time than Frank thinks _he_ could make. There’s a wild moment he isn’t even sure how well _he’ll_ keep up with Matt.

Then he grins, aware it looks like a split bruise in his face, but Murdock seems to enjoy it. “Let’s run,” Frank says, and off they go.

\------

“Alright,” Jess yells. She’s on her back on the asphalt, limbs spread, one hand cupped at her mouth as if it will make her even louder. She likes the security of the road: it has been here for years and will be here years from now. There’s nothing variable or unusual or unexpected from the goddamn middle of the road. Her entire life could be a little more middle of the road.

“Sound off!” She shifts, her shoulderblades complaining against the rough surface. 

“Fourteen,” Murdock yells. Jess thinks he’s in the dumpster; she hasn’t moved to check, but he’s usually in the fucking dumpster. He and Barton seem to have an affinity for the damn things, as if their Zodiac signs are just a picture of a garbage can on fire. She can relate, sure, but she’ll eat pavement before she dives into one of those again.

“Twelve,” Barnes says. Jess knows he’s telling the truth; Barnes hates killing these days, although he loves fighting, which can sometimes put him at odds with himself. In this case, where the things they were fighting seemed to be nothing but spawns from the larger creature they’d had to defeat at the end, she feels like maybe he could give himself a break. Like Barnes ever gives himself a break over anything. Barton included.

“Seventeen,” Barton crows then, as if her thoughts have summoned him. “From someone’s terrible balcony. _Suck that._ ” His voice sounds like whiskey, and Jess considers standing up for a long moment, before she decides against it.

“Seventeen,” she yells back. She doesn’t necessarily like killing herself, but events long ago have ground it into her skin that sometimes it’s necessary, and she’s really come to terms with her own view on morality in the last few years. Plus, they were mostly robots. “Right up in the mess. Suck _that._ ”

“Suck it with sauce,” Murdock says.

“Suck it shaken, not stirred,” Barton chimes in, the competition easily forgotten.

“Suck it on the rocks.”

“Suck it with peppercorn ranch.”

“Suck it with a hint of basil,” Barnes adds, and Jess can hear the grin underlying the monotone of his voice.

Barton snorts. “Suck it medium rare.”

“Suck it with a matching tie and socks,” says Murdock, who once again might be missing the point but generally gets the feel of it.

“Suck it on nineteen-inch rims,” Barton tells him.

“Suck it paired with a Zinfandel from California’s golden year 2014,” Murdock starts, and everyone must be giving him a _look,_ because he adds, “I know a guy with a winery, okay, you’re all philistines.”

“Eighteen,” Castle announces. “Shut the fuck up.”

There’s a long moment of silence, and then Jess cackles from the ground and yells, “Frank wins the blowjob!”

The exclamation is followed by a whole lot of muttering — she can hear Castle saying, “The fuck?” while Murdock asks, “Is that what we were playing for?” and she thinks she can hear Barton mumbling, “I volunteer as tribute,” which means the low growl assaulting her senses must be Barnes.

God, Jess thinks, all her men are idiots.

“Losers buy shots,” she yells instead, a single muscular move looping her up onto her feet. She wants to make sure she gets some of that whiskey before Barton wastes it all on his own stomach.

———

Matt notices that something is wrong a few feet from the door into their office.

First of all, the scent is wrong. With pets, he regularly notices the smell and then lets it filter through his senses until it’s gone; they usually aren’t important. But there’s the scent of dog - excited dog - along this hallway, and since it has grown in magnitude since he got off the elevator, Matt’s suddenly suspicious.

The noises are second, as usual; during normal operations, Matt filters his senses through the most dramatic first - scent and taste - with feel and sound following. But here, stopped approximately ten feet from the door into their office, Matt can hear: a whining, starting low and peaking rather harshly. A whimper, something needy. The clatter of nails and paw-pads on a finished floor. Foggy’s voice, finally, murmuring sweet nothings and very vague threats.

There’s a dog in his goddamned law office.

Matt sharpens all of his senses so that he can dramatically throw the door open because Foggy deserves this. The second he steps into the office, he’s hit with scent: that malty, yeasty smell of new dog, the amora of Foggy’s anxiety, the slight hint of dry kibble in the background.

“What the fuck,” says Matt.

“This is not my dog,” Foggy starts. “It isn’t our dog either. This is not - this is not a _permanent_ puppy, Matt. This is, uh, a temporary situation.”

“What the fuck.” Matt enjoys repeating himself sometimes. 

“Look,” says Foggy, and then Matt can hear the scrabble of claws against the floor and then feel a small soft nose pressing into the ankles of his trousers. “Our last appointment - to which please let me append, Matt, that it is in fact ten-thirty in the morning, rather than nine-o’clock - welcomed a young mother with three children and this poor … yapping … thing. Into the office.”

“Foggy,” Matt says, with extra emphasis because he’s pretty sure the puppy is licking at his two hundred and fifty dollar shoes, “what the fuck.”

“She was cute,” Foggy blurts, “and the kids were cute and look, you can’t see it, but this little guy is absolutely adorable. She just needs somewhere to keep him for the day, while she makes her arguments to the judge, and I figured it’s just a day right, man, just a day, and by the way you’ve missed an hour and a half of it _already.”_

The dog, apparently feeling ignored by the two men in the room with it, starts whimpering. 

The problem with dogs - puppies - _animals_ in general - is that, well, they often make noises outside the human spectrum that Matt’s ears are used to dealing with. Matt has the entire human range down pat, from bellows of anger to shrieks of delight; his ears are used to these sounds, and know how to enhance or dampen them accordingly. But animals have sounds outside his normal range of comfort.

This puppy, in fact, is now producing a series of rhythmic sharp yelps that pierce Matt’s sensitive ears much like a knife into a watermelon. The yapping feels like someone has taken a red-hot knitting needle and driven it into his ear canal. He has approximately thirty more seconds of tolerance for this shit, and then he’s not going to be responsible for how he responds.

“Matt,” Foggy says, and Matt can tell by the wavering in his voice that he must have a certain expression on his face. “Matt, _Jesus,_ calm down—”

———

Frank pulls his mobile out of his pocket. The number on the screen, oddly, is labeled _Foggy,_ although Frank doesn’t remember putting any of Franklin Nelson’s numbers into his phone, ever. 

“Foggy,” he says, as he lifts the phone to his ear.

“Man, why do you have my personal cell number,” Foggy whines into his ear. “I don’t want you calling me at three in the morning. Erase this. Just delete everything.”

“ _You_ called _me_ ,” Frank reminds him, and pauses. The sun is working its way through the clouds, subtly warming his shoulders beneath his construction shirt. 

“Yeah,” Foggy says, his voice low and urgent. “I need you to swing by the offices.”

Frank may not have over-sensitive eardrums, and his phone isn’t the greatest, but he’s starting to put these pieces together. Foggy’s voice sounds muffled, as if he’s stuffed into a tiny space, and Frank can pick up on some heavy breathing and faint whining. Sounds like a dog. Frank likes dogs.

“The fuck, Nelson,” he says. After a bit of thought he isn’t sure the whimpering isn’t Nelson.

“Look,” Foggy hisses. “I _might_ be hiding in the _supply closet_ because I agreed to keep a fucking _puppy_ in the office - for a day, man, a day, and if you had seen her you’d have given her a week, I swear, but Matt’s just suddenly all like _Lethal Weapon 4_ and I’m stuck here, look, Castle, you have to come deal with him.”

“Foggy, Jesus,” Frank says into the phone. “What the hell is going on.”

“I’m holding a puppy for a pretty lady who was a bit off her luck,” Foggy Nelson tells him, “and Matt Murdock is literally about to murder me for it.”

———

Matt Murdock himself is trying to count his blessings, remember his serenity, and ignore the noises at the periphery of his hearing.

Luckily, his ears don’t feel like they’re being stabbed anymore. That stopped when he stormed into Foggy’s office with his cane, picked up the pup under one arm - apparently not a safe and secure way to carry a puppy, based on Foggy’s stuttering directions, but Matt was at that point very much not caring - and tucked the little thing into their supply closet. After the third time Foggy had tried to sneak the puppy back into his office, Matt had gathered the puppy under one arm and Foggy under the other and had shoved them both into the supply closet. He’d shut every door between them on his way back to the office, and while his superior hearing could pick up that Foggy was still talking, he assumed it was just reassuring words to the dog. Since he’d attempted to slam the door shut so hard it locked itself closed.

He might also be considering stuffing cotton balls into his ears. He knows the ladies’ room has its own supply of cotton balls - don’t ask how - and he’s fairly sure of his own ability to slip in there and nick a handful. Most of the women in this building would actually allow him to argue off that he’s blind, really, because most of them don’t even notice he can make it into his own office without even extending the cane.

But then, there’s the sound of big boots slamming their way up the stairs, down the hall, and Matt hears the door to their office thrown open.

He’s fairly sure he’s right - he might have memorized the cadence of those boots, might have mentally studied the sound until he can recognize it anywhere; he might be overly aggressively sold on that sound - so he isn’t at all surprised when Frank Castle throws his office door open and says, “Murdock, what the fuck?”

Matt’s caught up in a moment where all of his senses are, radiantly, reading Frank; the heat pouring off of his stocky, compact frame; the scent of construction materials and sweat and some kind of amused annoyance. The sound of his breathing, deep and raspy and familiar, the way it makes Matt wonder what it might sound like gasping his name. Matt can taste Frank’s urgency on his tongue, along with the sweat and the flavor of the cologne he only remembers to wear some days (sandalwood, and basil, and fresh water; deep and clean). When Frank enters a room like this, it’s as if a bomb has hit Matt’s senses; it can take him a little bit of time to recover.

“Hello, Frank,” Matt says, finally, and he’s afraid that his own curious want is flavoring every word as it comes out of his mouth. He can hear and feel the way Frank’s face moves but it isn’t at all like being able to read an expression; he feels parched. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“Nelson called,” Frank starts, but Matt hears the muscles of his neck as his gaze shifts around the room -- and then also hears the deep chuckle in his throat before Frank says, amused beyond belief, “Why on earth do you have a poster saying _Live, Laugh, Lube_ hanging in your office, Red?”

Matt’s non-existent vision goes up in red and black.

_Fucking_ Barton.

“Are you serious?” Matt manages to say eventually, because the rest of his senses seem to be flickering at him, as if they aren’t prepared for this kind of thing.

“Aw, hell,” Frank replies, and _that’s_ the Punisher Matt finds himself overly weak for: the man with the stern face and the soft heart and the entirely snarky sense of humor. “Did I ruin the joke?”

“You might have ruined Hawkeye’s life,” says Matt, standing up from behind his desk. He has to extend the cane because Frank’s presence is overwhelming and he really doesn’t want to mess up, not now, not with everything broiling at the surface of his skin. Matt wonders, momentarily, whether Frank has any chance of sensing this. It’s possible, but if so, Frank would have figured out how Matt felt approximately _now,_ with the way all of his blind nerves are reaching towards the heat source that’s Frank Castle’s calm body.

“All these fucking years,” says Matt. “I’m going to tear his leg off and feed it to the Hand.”

Frank chuckles, and it’s warm and rich and exactly the thing Matt needs to feel at this moment. “Might as well let Foggy free,” Frank tells him. “You’ll need to pay the bills.”

———

“So,” Clint says. “Daredevil came by the dumpster today.”

Bucky glances down to where Clint’s head is leaning - a little bit, anyway - against his thigh. He’s seated on a rotting old ottoman; Clint’s sprawled out over the rest of the garbage. He’d been passing through on his way to Clint’s Bed-Stuy apartment building when some familiar sound had registered and he’d found Clint in this dumpster, fairly beat to hell, with a bottle of whiskey. When Bucky says _fairly_ beat to hell he means it too: injuries that will hurt, but aren’t going to put Clint out of commission, or permanently weaken him in any way.

“It looks like Daredevil gave you an ass-whoopin’,” Bucky says, reaching down to take the bottle. His metabolism is super fucked-up, which means if he focuses hard enough he might be able to get drunk for five minutes, which would give him the excuse he needs to run his hand through Clint’s hair. Bucky ain’t sure what kinda game they’re playing; he thinks Clint’s playing back, but he isn’t sure whether the reticence he detects sometimes is cause he’s the Winter Soldier or cause Clint just isn’t that into it.

“Yeah, he fucking did,” Clint says, flexing his jaw as he does so. He reaches out for the bottle and Bucky easily passes it down to where Clint can take another sip. “I deserved it, though.” At this, a brilliant shit-eating grin breaks out across Clint’s face, and Bucky’s breath catches in his throat cause when Clint Barton smiles like that the sun might as well fuckin’ retire.

He swallows. “Don’t tell me he caught you making another of those Daredevil X Punisher valentines,” Bucky tells Clint. “It’s April, you fuckball.”

“Even better.” Clint chuckles, takes another drink, and passes the bottle upwards as his head tips back to look Bucky in the face. This means a good deal of Clint’s skull is pressed into Bucky’s thigh, and that’s a really nice feeling right there for a guy who hasn’t had a lot of luck with _casual touching._ “I guess Castle went to Matt’s office and spilled the fucking beans.”

Bucky, who has known about the _Live, Laugh, Lube_ poster since Clint had it framed and gave it to Matt however many months ago, simply sighs.

“Bro,” Clint says immediately, tipping his head back even _farther_ until Bucky’s pretty certain Clint’s deliberately pushing into his leg. “Bucky, my pal, my bro, love of my life, you do _not_ get to make that kind of noise at the end of one of my greatest pranks. You fuck.”

Clint says things like this all the time. Bucky swallows a big mouthful of bourbon and allows his right hand to drift across his lap to where it might touch Clint’s hair. “You’re seriously lucky it lasted this long. It’s really not professional at all.”

“The words _Lube_ and _Love_ look _strangely similar_ when they’re written in _super gay cursive,_ ” Clint tells him, and to Bucky’s surprise he scoots himself a little across the garbage pile so that his head is actually _on_ Bucky’s thigh, like a pillow. Bucky freezes, determined to never move again. “And they do business just fine. Probably make more than I do,” Clint grumbles, and reaches for the bottle again.

“Nelson left it hanging, I figure that’s all the permission you need,” Bucky says, carefully handing over the bottle. As he leans, he lets his hand accidentally brush through Clint’s mohawk; to his surprise Clint makes some weird kind of sound and jerks his head back towards Bucky’s hand, before taking a long drink. The position he’s in, with his head thrown back onto Bucky’s thigh, is showcasing his long neck — especially as he chugs whiskey like an alcoholic. Bucky probably shouldn’t be smitten by that, but he isn’t necessarily known for his good life choices either.

“Here,” says Clint, and passes the bottle up into Bucky’s left hand; his arm comes up and, shamelessly, grabs at Bucky’s right hand, the flesh one, burying it in his hair like a demand. This is something new; Bucky just starts moving his hand softly, through Clint’s hair, like he wants, because he’s really, really afraid of fucking this up.

He also takes a really fucking long chug of the whiskey, because he’s afraid of fucking this up.

“All this means,” Clint says, pulling the bottle back to sit on his breastbone; he’s bright-eyed, although his eyelids are fluttering as Bucky’s hand gently and carefully moves. “Stage one is over. We have to find something _worse_ to put in Murdock’s office once he takes the poster down.”

Bucky wants to ask any other question but what comes out of his mouth is, “We?”

Clint tips his head back again, revealing all those tendons along his neck that Bucky wants to set teeth to. “Well,” says Hawkeye, grinning. “I’m going to need an accomplice if I’m going to beat that one.”

And Bucky can’t help the smile he has to give Clint, even though he feels like it’s stupid and broad and too revealing. He isn’t _good_ at this. But this is something new and Bucky is _not_ gonna let his shit fuck any of this up if he can let it.

“Right,” he says slowly, watching as Clint’s smile broadens until it’s beaming again. “So what’s worse than _Live, Laugh, Lube?_ ”

Clint licks his lips as if he’s thinking, but his eyes don’t ever leave Bucky’s. “I bet we can come up with something,” he says, “if we put our heads together.”


	3. BOOOOOOOOONEEE?!???!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank and Matt are up to something. A couple of dumb ideas come by the dumpster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted this for Fratt Week! The prompt: **bone.** I'm sure this is what EVERYONE wanted: 16 pages worth of dick jokes.
> 
> I absolutely blame my murder husband ([feathers_and_cigarettes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feathers_and_cigarettes)) for all of this. He sat on the couch and watched me giggle at myself while writing and didn’t stop me.

“So Castle and Murdock came round the dumpster this morning,” Clint tells Jessica, his grin wide. “Lookin’ all suspicious.”

“Suspicious how?” Jessica takes the bottle from Clint. They haven’t had anyone fucking around in Brooklyn for three days, and she and Clint are restless from it, so they’re back in their favorite dumpster drinking knock-off Jack Daniels. Sparring each other doesn’t really help; Jessica has the advantage face-to-face, with her strength and her ability to jump, and there’s no sense in having a long-distance fight that Clint wins automatically: they make a great team against an enemy, but not against each other. Instead, they get together to sit amongst the familiar piles of garbage and drink.

“You tell me.” Clint starts ticking off on his fingers. “Together, early in the morning. Looking all suspicious-like. Rumpled clothes. Bruises on their necks. And Matt’s hair was still wet from the shower.”

“Oh my god,” Jessica says, and Clint swipes the bottle back from her. “Did they _bone_?”

“I think they boned,” Clint tells her, and they exchange the kind of grin you only give your good friend when you know you’re going to be taking the massive piss out of a third mutual friend and it’s going to be absolutely amazing.

———

They’re at Nora’s again that night, cause everybody’s bored. Frank’s a bit late; he’s been making up some extra hours at the yard, to make up for all the days he has to vanish at a phone call. Jimmy’s a great boss who understands Frank’s outside life — and Frank wants to keep it that way, which means occasionally, he puts in a little extra for the man. It’s simple enough work, and it tires him out, and he likes when he can look at something at the end of the day that’s better put-together than it was when he woke up. That being said, Frank’s absolutely thirsting for a cold beer at this point; it’s warming up, and the city’s warming up alongside the weather.

“Frank,” Clint calls out from the corner of the bar. “Lucky man! Get over here.”

Frank’s not sure what Barton means by lucky, but there’s a beer for him when he gets there - he gives Nora an appreciative nod - and maybe that’s lucky enough.

“Someone’s in a good mood,” says Jessica, leering at him. 

“I am?” Frank’s tired and covered in construction dust. He isn’t in a _bad_ mood per se, but he certainly ain’t shittin’ rainbows or anything. 

“Well, you should be.” Clint is waggling his eyebrows in that way he does when he’s trying to make an extra lewd joke. Frank thinks back over the few words of conversation they’ve had and comes up blank. Maybe this is some kind of joke they’d come up with before he showed up.

“I’ll bite,” Frank says. “Why?”

“Uhhhhh,” says Clint, as if Frank is missing something incredibly obvious. “You know.”

“I really don’t,” Frank says.

Bucky, on Clint’s other side, leans in. “They were drinking in the dumpster,” he tells Frank. “I don’t know what’s going on either.”

“Got one in the socket?” Clint keeps the eyebrows going. It looks absolutely absurd.

“Took one in the pocket,” Jessica adds. 

“Shot off your rocket.”

“Fuck,” says Jessica, and then yells, “Cocked it and locked it!”

“I hate you,” Clint says.

“I hate you both,” Bucky adds, and elbows Clint. “What are you talking about?”

“Frank had a good night last night,” Clint replies. He’s leaning into Bucky, and Frank tracks it, wondering whether it means anything or if it’s just drunk-Clint’s normal way of swaying towards the nearest warm body. 

“I… guess?” Frank thinks back. He’d gone to bed on time after a really nice scotch and a steak, then got woken up by a direct call from Murdock, who needed to take out a series of robot-creatures that had a bad habit of aiming for the neck and the wrists. They’d cleaned it out and then Matt had bought him an omelette at this tiny hole-in-the-wall cafe that he’d said had the best lox and cream cheese on a bagel he’d ever had.

Like anything he does with Red, it hadn’t been a bad night at all. But he wouldn’t really say it was anything… special?

“It wasn’t bad,” he says instead, and he’s rewarded for that with a peal of laughter from both Jessica and Clint. Bucky meets his eyes and then rolls his, and Frank just shrugs.

“Not really a resounding review,” Clint tells him.

“What should I be sayin’ instead?” Frank’s starting to get a bit irritated, so he picks up the cool lager they’ve bought him and slugs down half of it. _Hell,_ but that’s good after the early morning and long workday he’s had. It’s crisp and cool and smooth, just bitter enough to say hello to his taste buds as it slides on down. Okay, maybe he can put up with this if he has a couple more of these nice cold beers.

“If you have to ask, that’s pretty awful,” Jess tells him. “Red’s got something to make up for.”

Oh, Frank thinks. “Hey, Murdock came to me for it, don’t be jealous. I handled it.”

Clint cackles. “Oh, I’m not fuckin’ jealous, Castle. Don’t get any ideas. I’m glad you, uh, took care of it.”

“Yeah, not exactly my scene.” Jess shudders and chugs down half her beer. “That’s allllll you, Castle.”

Frank glances over at Bucky. Bucky shrugs back; this has to be some dumb joke that JJ and Clint came up with earlier today. He takes a long refreshing pull of his beer and signals Josie for another.

———

“What do you mean,” says Foggy. “What the sputtering hell do you mean.”

“I’m really not sure,” Barton says, straightening his shoulders. “Exceeept... that they absolutely boned.”

“Proof.” Madani’s at the back of the room, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Foggy has to respect the way she manages to stay aloof to all things except the ones that are likely to make her money on a bet.

“I’m just a witness.” Barton splays his palms up to the air, long fingers spreading. “A witness who saw them in the morning, all frumpled and wrinkled, still wet from the shower, basically holding hands.” He grins at them. “And then a witness who heard Frank own up to it at Nora’s last night.”

“Frumpled isn’t a word,” Foggy tells him, but Barton ignores it.

“Fuck,” says Karen, and Foggy glances over to catch her regretful gaze. “I was almost two weeks out.”

“That’s mine,” Dinah says. She pushes off from the wall and stalks forward, stopping only to brush a hand across the small of Karen’s back. Foggy may feel a bit lonely watching them, but he can’t help but be happy for them both, cause they fit like friggin’ puzzle pieces.

“What,” Barton asks, “did y’all have a pool?”

“Whole office did,” Foggy tells him. “It’s been obvious for years, just gotten serious lately. People betting weeks. We’re legal, not stupid.”

“Shit.” Barton shakes his head. “We’ve had an outside pool for like four months, Could have joined up, made it a nice big pot.”

“Still would have been mine.” Madani pulls a receipt from her wallet and slaps it onto the table, sliding it over to Foggy. “Just saying.”

“If there’s proof,” Foggy says. “We need at least one of them to admit to it.”

“Bro,” says Barton, “I’m telling you. Castle all but gave us dirty details at the bar last night.”

“Aw, fuck,” says Karen, and Foggy gathers up Dinah’s paperwork and puts it inside his jacket pocket.

“We need confirmation,” he tells Barton, and Hawkeye gives him a lazy half-ass salute back.

———

Bucky’s coming back from the bar at _Kaylee’s_ when Jones and Murdock walk in. It’s funny thinking of Jones as the reliable one, but Murdock’s told Bucky before that her metabolism runs extra-hot, which makes her easy to follow. And it isn’t like Jones is a complete mess; she’s good to her friends, and she seems to enjoy Murdock’s company, at least.

Clint isn’t here yet. Bucky always feels a bit awkward with the rest of the Hell’s Kitchen crew without Clint, even though they’ve never been anything but cool with him. It isn’t anything about them. It’s Bucky’s own bullshit, the fact that he knows them well enough to fight with but not well enough for any of the normal-person-type things he struggles with. 

Clint’s like a ... _lubricant_ is absolutely the wrong word. Bucky resolves to forget that word immediately. But Clint does smooth things over, makes everything a bit more welcome and accessible to someone like Bucky. 

Lubricant. Jesus fucking wept.

He heads back to the corner table they’ve taken over for tonight. It’s him and Nelson and Page; Castle’s apparently on a late shift, and now Jones and Murdock have arrived. Danny’s not coming, the Maximoff twins have been haunting Nora’s lately, and Clint’s on his way. Bucky doesn’t think anyone else is in town. Stevie’s still off fighting his fight, the other Avengers don’t tell Bucky much, and Tony doesn’t usually dabble in these dumpster fights at all.

“Matt,” says Foggy. There’s something sneaky to his grin; Bucky remembers he’s a lawyer, clever enough to occasionally tie Murdock in knots. This should be interesting. “There’s the big man with this week’s big win.”

“Uh,” says Murdock, as Jess gets him aimed at a chair. “Big win?”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Nelson tells him.

Jones tosses herself into her own chair and gives Luke - behind the counter - some complicated hand signal that probably means she’s just bought a bottle. “Frank told us all about it, buddy.”

Huh. Bucky shifts so that he can see more of Matt’s face in his peripheral vision. He’s been watching Murdock and Castle dance around each other like morons for a while now. It’s really because he knows he and Clint have been dancing around each other like _extra_ goddamn morons for a while and Bucky’s trying to pick up on anything that might work. He ain’t good at breaking this kind of stalemate but he’s real good at observation and he might as well use that at this point. 

The thing is, Matt looks more confused than anything. “I wouldn’t call it a big win. It started a bit rough, sure, but once Frank got there we had everything under control.”

“Aha,” says Jones. “What was it, early morning booty call?”

Murdock laughs. “If you want to call it that? What, are you jealous? We didn’t exactly need help. Frank and I had it handled.”

“I bet Frank handled it,” says Karen in a low voice. 

Foggy snickers. “He’d be up for a good handling.”

“I bet he’d want to handle your problem again,” adds Jess. “Any time.”

“He is very reliable.” Matt still looks a bit confused, but he’s leaning back into his chair, beer in hand.

“Yes I am,” Clint says over Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky turns instantly, which probably looks eager, but whatever. “Hey, Buck.”

“Yo, Barton,” Jones says. “Matt says Frank helped _handle_ his _problem._ ”

“Two for two,” Clint says, and high-fives her.

Now _Bucky’s_ getting confused. Is this innuendo or some kind of colossal joke? He’s still not the best with the little word games this crew enjoys so much. 

“I’m not sure why we’re still talking about it.” Murdock waves his beer in Clint’s general direction as a greeting, as Clint pulls a chair up to the table, tucking himself between Bucky and Nelson. “I wouldn’t say it was a big problem.”

“Really?” Clint grins. “Murdock, for some reason I thought you’d have a _big_ problem you’re dealing with.”

Jones snorts. “The way he talks about it, makes you think it’s a _huge_ problem.”

“A problem with some girth to it,” Nelson adds, and Karen snorts into her beer. She hides it with a cough. 

“Length and depth?” 

“A whole history,” says Jones. “Good solid problem there.”

“Nice big thick problem.” Clint sighs dreamily. “If only we all had that kind of problem.”

“Oh my god,” Karen says. “ _Barton._ ”

“Look,” Clint tells her, “my problem is very appropriately sized.”

Bucky’s trying not to laugh. He takes a sip of his beer to hide a smile in the glass.

———

“The nerve of them!” Clint shouts. “Buncha fuckin’ AIM garbage coming round the dumpster like this!”

“I know,” Jess yells, swinging one of them around by the arm and chucking him into the wall. “We were just getting started.”

Clint hears the _rat-tat-tat_ of Bucky’s gun, and watches as he clips the legs of the two idiots heading Clint’s way. Clint himself is perched on someone’s fire escape; it’s high enough that he has a line-of-sight, but it’s not great.

“We got more incoming,” Jessica yells, and Clint swears as he sees five more men join the fray. 

He assumes they were lookin’ for the Stark Industries employee who lives near this particular dumpster; she’s been getting some death threats lately, for refusing to disclose details on their latest innovative material. Stark set her up a patrol, but the gang tends to do a better job with “cleanup”, and they’d heard it on the radio early enough to call everybody in.

“I’ve gotta retreat a bit,” Bucky yells. “I’ll try to get a line on the newcomers.”

“Fuck!” Jones takes a diver, eating pavement for a long stretch. She jumps right back up - it’s unfair, Clint thinks for a moment - and delivers a jaw-breaking punch to the asshole who floored her. “Christ, there’s another goddamn dirty dozen.”

“Shit,” Clint says, mentally counting his arrows. He can dash down to reclaim some of them, but that puts him in the fray, and he’s so much better from a distance.

“Stop taking the Lord’s name in vain,” Matt says over the comms, static crackling into Clint’s hearing aid. “We’re here and we’re behind them.”

“We,” says Clint, but then he hears the loud bark of Castle’s handgun: once, twice, and a shrill scream that cuts off quickly.

Clint shifts his stance. He can see Matt - just wearing the mask and athletic gear this time - somersaulting over the heads of three of the assholes who’ve been hanging back. Batons make quick work of them, and then Clint gets the clap of Bucky’s gun again, along with Frank’s.

“Sorry we’re late,” Frank says into the comms. “Someone needed a goddamn bagel sandwich.”

“You will not mock Ike’s Deli in this house,” says Matt.

“Aw,” Clint says, nocking an arrow on the string. “Did AIM interrupt your date?”

Jess jumps upwards, grabs the edges of the fire escape Clint’s on, and says happily: “They absolutely boned. Again.”

“Gotta get the bone,” Clint tells her, and she launches herself onto the shoulders of the bro beneath her.

Clint lines up his shot and easily takes out someone’s kneecap. They each have their own stance on the extent of violence they dish out, and that seems to work for them. His next shot is through the bicep of the fucker trying to sneak up on Bucky, who has now entered the fight and is tossing guys around with his left arm like he’s JJ.

Frank and Matt are still chattering - flirting - over the comm. “Could take out more guys than you with a bagel sandwich in one hand,” Matt’s saying, and Clint tunes in as he lines up another arrow.

“Like to see you try.” Frank’s gun coughs twice more and Clint swings his aim to the guy behind him. “Fuckin’ super senses get overwhelmed by the scent of pastrami.”

“ _It’s good pastrami.”_

“Aw,” Jess says over the comm. “You guys arguing about the meats?”

“You just come from the meatpacking district?” Clint chimes in.

“You make yourself a meat sandwich?”

“Get a good mouthful?”

To their surprise, Murdock joins the game. “Got distracted by a big hunk of salami.”

Clint snorts and has to line up his aim again. Does Matt realize they’re making fun of _him?_ Or is he just admitting to boning Castle in a terrible way because he’s a terrible person?

“Did you manage to fit it all in your mouth?” Of course, Jess is unstoppable.

Matt chuckles. “Took a few tries.”

“Oh my god,” Bucky says over the line. “Will you get your mouths out of the gutter—” Clint hears a spray of bullets “— while we’re wrapping this up?”

“I’ll wrap your mouth up,” Clint says, and then has to take a moment to cringe. Why does he let his mouth run like this?

“Fill it up with some nice warm meat,” Jess says, cackling, and Clint debates whether he wants to put an arrow through her hoodie.

———

Josie’s is _packed_ tonight. Jessica’s basically claimed a whole stretch of the bar and the tables nearest it: her jacket stretched over bar stools, one boot in the middle of each table, and her sitting on the bar itself growling at anyone who comes close.

She’s lucky that most of the patrons at Josie’s recognize her. They know how the gang can get in close quarters and most of the customers really just want to stay away from that, want to drink and eat in peace. The bartenders all know they bring in business, too, so she’s not gonna get yelled at for sitting on the bar in socked feet.

Clint shows up first, with Bucky and the Maximoff twins in tow. Jessica smirks; she knows the Maximoffs have an odd kind of hero-worship / big-brother thing going on with Clint, and she finds it hilarious. Clint finds it less hilarious, but never fails to take advantage of their devotion at times it’s worth it. 

Jessica lets them pick their seats and settle in, just as the Hell’s Kitchen crew walks in: Frank, Matt, Foggy, and Karen, all here as promised. Frank’s got his hand on the small of Matt’s back; it’s actually a big admission for both of them, like that: Matt allowing someone to help him, and Frank carefully guiding him in. Jess has noticed a few touches like that between them before, but never really let it mean anything in her head until now. Apparently, now it means things.

“Welcome,” Jess declares, spreading her arms out as if she’s the ringleader in some show. “It’s Not-Avengers Night, and I’m your host, Jessica Fucking Jones.”

“Fuck you, Jones,” Pietro calls out. “We are Avengers, no?”

“We are,” Wanda yells, elbowing Pietro. “Just because you are not on the team.”

“I’m a goddamn original Avenger,” Clint bellows, quieting everyone down. “Y’all can shut up. This is still Not-Avengers Night.”

“I will hide my identification card,” Pietro announces to the crowd behind them, waving it about. “Ladies, remember that this is legitimate.”

“But he isn’t!” Wanda calls. “Garbage, sent directly to your door.”

“Shut _up!”_ Jess yells. They both turn back to her with grins on their faces. 

She brandishes the whiskey bottle she’d gotten earlier. “Hello my hoes, bros, and those, and welcome to tonight’s drinking game. It’s less of a game and more of a drinking party, just as an FYI.”

“Suits me just fine,” Clint yells. “Turn it down, Jones.”

Jessica turns around to the shot glasses set up at her side and starts pouring. “Turning it down, Barton,” she yells. “This is in honor of Castle and Murdock, alright?”

She sees them in the crowd, turning to each other: Murdock’s eyes may not be focused, but he’s absolutely turned to face Castle, whose face just looks distinctly confused. This might be more fun than she thought. 

“Wait,” says Pietro. “What are you saying?”

Jess starts passing shot glasses out to her friends. “Oh, nothing,” she tells him. “We’re just celebrating a boning.”

“Excuse me?” Wanda sits up straight. Behind her, Clint rolls his eyes grinning; Bucky’s expression is giving her some kind of warning, but Jess is a bit distracted pouring and passing out the shots. “Are you really discussing… the bone?”

“Oi,” says Barnes, and there’s a warning note in his voice. Jessica ignores it. She’s not afraid of Bucky.

“There has been a great boning,” she intones under her breath as she passes glasses back to Foggy and Karen, who are carrying back to their table. “We are but humble servants in service of the bone.”

“Are you talking a decent bone?” Pietro smirks. “A good bone, a dog bone.”

“A bone with some meat on it.” Wanda has already done her shot, grinning up at Jessica.

“T-bone steak.” Pietro grins, because the rest of the crowd is leaning in to listen to this conversation. 

“Hambone,” Clint announces in this low growling voice that has Jessica snorting laughter into her beer. 

“Bone broth.” Wanda cackles.

“Wait,” Frank starts at their table. “What the fuck?”

“Hey,” says Pietro. “That’s my funny bone.”

“The head bone,” Wanda announces soberly, “is connected to the neck bone.”

“The neck bone is connected to the ...shoulder… bone?” Clint is trying to complete the song. He’s probably failed. Not like Jessica has good memories of primary school either.

“Head, shoulders, knees, and toes,” says Pietro, wisely.

“Look, you bag of bones,” Foggy yells into the fray. Jess is glad he’s joined in; she pours him another shot.

“Got a bone to pick with you!” Karen hollers, pointing at Matt, who goes surprisingly red, even if he can’t see her face.

“Bitch, you are chilled to the bone,” Clint calls.

“Hey,” Bucky says, and it’s funny because he usually doesn’t join in. “Hey. What’s a skeleton’s favorite snack?”

“Y’all jumped them bones?” Jessica calls, still frantically pouring.

“Meat?” Pietro asks.

“Bones?” Wanda follows.

The group is a hilarious kind of chaotic at the moment: there are a number of different conversations happening, and in the back, it seems like Frank is maybe starting to pick up on it, because his face is slowly turning crimson.

“Somebody rattled them bones,” she yells, and Matt glances back at Frank again as if he’s suddenly putting a lot of pieces together.

“What is a skeleton’s favorite snack,” Barnes is repeating close to the top of his lungs. Clint is patting him on the arm, already giggling.

“Wait a second,” Wanda says, leaning over to the other table. “Did you guys really bone?”

“I don’t know,” Pietro says to Bucky. “Tell me.”

“Bone?” Matt asks, and then glances back at Frank with this half-horrified, half-intrigued look on his face as if things have finally clicked.

“ _RIBS,”_ Bucky bellows at the top of his lungs. “ _SPARE RIBS._ ”

Clint’s giggling so hard Jessica isn’t really sure how he can breathe at this point. He ends up having to put his head down on his folded arms, driving choked laughter into the table. 

Pietro is cackling with him, but Wanda has slipped around to lean against Matt and Frank’s table. “Really,” she’s saying. “Have you finally done the bone?”

“Done the bone.” Foggy is giggling too; he has to turn his face into Karen’s shoulder, and she idly pats him on the head, while carefully watching the other two.

“Tell me the bare bones,” Wanda says. She swings herself onto an empty bar stool. “Did you in fact cut to the bone? Suckle out the marrow? Enjoy a nice big bone to gnaw on?”

Pietro and Clint are leaning on each other, laughing. Bucky looks confused but pleased. Jessica starts pouring all three of them another shot, because she’s happy that Bucky tried.

Then there’s the screeching jerk of a chair ring shoved across the floor, and the Punisher standing up: brick-cheeked, low brow, mouth set _hard._ “What the _FUCK,_ ” Frank bellows, and the entire bar goes silent. “Y’all think we’ve boned?” He takes a deep breath - Jessica winces - and then hollers at the top of his lungs: “ _REALLY?? **BOOOOOONE??!???**_ ”

No one speaks. The people behind Frank have shrunk up, backs against the bar. Matt reaches out to put a hand on Frank’s arm; Frank shakes his head, but doesn’t remove Matt’s touch.

“Get the _fuck_ out of my business,” Castle announces, and Jessica’s bottle is empty. She turns around to signal to the bartender that she’s going to need at least seven more.

———

Matt follows Frank’s blazing heat out of Josie’s, because he knows one thing: Frank walks him home.

It’s been the truth ever since they started up this odd partnership. No matter where they are, or how much they’ve had to drink, Frank walks Matt home. It doesn’t mean the whole way — sometimes, if Foggy or Karen are there, Frank will walk Matt to a certain point and then bow out. But whenever they leave one of their favorite bars, Frank Castle is there to walk him home. 

This time, Frank’s hand is stiff between Matt’s shoulders. He can feel the extra heat emanating from Frank’s body, can hear that his heart rate is still faster than normal. And yet Frank’s touch is gentle as he guides Matt down the sidewalk to the proper crossing.

If Matt had a dollar for every time he’d gotten home from Josie’s on his own, he’d be able to afford a cleaning service. And yet he isn’t insulted by Frank’s guidance; maybe because he knows that _Frank_ knows Matt can make it on his own, and is just trying to help. Or maybe it’s this piece of him that’s weak to anything Castle does, any sort of gentle touch he can win, any moment of normal conversation.

Matt’s picking up on Frank’s body language: tense, a bit embarrassed, a bit lost. He’s trying to figure out what that might mean, in the context of the group’s latest joke. Matt’s perfectly aware that he’s interested in Frank Castle, in a way he isn’t interested in the rest of their friends, but he’s also been very careful with it. He’s tried to move _with_ Frank, who he swears is also and mutually interested, or else Matt will sacrifice a round at Nora’s. 

But at this point they’re leaving the rest of the gang behind, with Frank still vibrating with upset. And since Matt can make each one of these steps on his own, he figures he should take this opportunity to calm Frank down a bit.

“So,” he begins, as Frank’s guiding hand solidifies on his back. “Not a big fan of those jokes, then?”

He hears Frank shake his head, angrily; hears the swallow in his throat. “Look, this ain’t my scene,” Frank says, and Matt’s somewhat overwhelmed with a wave of fondness.

He knows Frank’s very careful. He knows Frank’s meticulous. But Matt also knows… “You know they meant no harm, right?”

They’re already climbing the stairs to his building. Matt’s never been happier to know where he’s going, because it means he can draw back the sensory nerves focusing on his walk and dedicate them all to Frank.

He thinks Frank’s blushing; his face certainly reads warmer than usual, although it also seems tighter, as if Frank’s set his expression at something neutral and refuses to release it. He can still hear Frank’s heartbeat, higher than usual, even as they head up the stairs to Matt’s apartment. He can smell the heat wafting from Frank’s body—

—and suddenly, heaven wept, but he wants a taste.

“Red,” Frank starts. They turn the corner into Matt’s hallway. “I don’t like games like that.” He can hear Frank breathe, and then add: “Always someone getting hurt.”

They’re stopped in front of his door. Matt turns, abruptly enough that Frank’s hand remains on the muscular curve of his waist; Matt slides a bit closer, listening to Frank’s heartbeat and reading the heat cascading off of him like an aura. “Look,” Matt starts, because maybe this is his only chance, and he’s gonna work it as best he can.

“Red,” Frank breathes. He isn’t backing up, he isn’t turning away; Matt hears his heartrate increase, and feels his breathrate speed up. 

“Look,” Matt repeats, and then it’s caught a bit in his throat, but he’s going to belt it out tonight. “I’m not exactly a fan of those kinds of jokes either.” But he lifts his arm, lets his own hand come to rest on Frank’s broad chest. He hears Frank’s shiver as much as he feels it. 

“But,” Matt starts, and the phrase _having your heart in your mouth_ has never meant more to him than this moment; “it can’t be just me, is it?”

He leaves his hand on Frank’s chest, pressing his palm in. 

Frank stills. Matt can feel it, hear it, taste it. There’s a long moment that drags between them, leaving trails of emotion snagged onto their sharpest parts.

Frank says, finally, “Maybe not, Red,” and Matt finds he absolutely has to move.

There’s only a step between him and Frank. Matt takes it aggressively, confidently, leaving his hand on Frank’s chest so that he can better feel the beating of Frank’s heart, bringing his other hand up to the back of the Punisher’s neck to finally, brutally, relentlessly pull him in.

His lips touch Frank’s. There’s a moment here: somewhat pure, only as pure as the two of them will ever be, paused as their mouths press — and then Frank’s lips open to devour Matt, and all of his senses go up in _flames._

There’s Frank’s mouth, working against his, the constant press-and-move of his lips, his hot tongue slipping through Matt’s lips with a level of demand Matt’s not used to. There’s Frank’s hands, that come to grip his waist above the waistband of his pants, then slowly slide around his torso until one’s on his lower back and one’s distinctly sinking towards his ass. There’s Frank’s heartbeat, singing into his; there’s Frank’s heat, warming to a level of desperate desire Matt’s never felt from him before.

And Matt — Matt responds, desperate and daring, spurred on by Frank’s brutal honesty. Matt kisses back: tongue and teeth, lips and mouth, every single movement a word spelling out what he wants to do to Frank given enough time. His own hands want to tangle with Frank’s, but instead move so that one palm is cupping the Punisher’s neck, the base of his skull, and the other is in the middle of Frank’s back, pulling him ever-closer as best he can. 

Frank makes a noise in the back of his throat and it’s just - dry, wanting, urgent - and Matt brings both of his hands up to grip Frank’s skull, guiding it back into his, working their mouths together as if they’re both on fire. 

“Jesus,” Frank breathes into his mouth. Matt ends up making a sound he didn’t intend to make, all frantically needy, but it makes Castle’s face light up as if Matt’s a pile of C4 Frank’s just realized he gets to light himself.

“I like that,” Frank ends up muttering into his neck. Frank’s teeth and lips have been working down the line of his neck; he’s probably left at least one bitemark, based on the way Matt’s blood is calling out at the moment, red-hot and pulsing dramatically. 

“Fuck,” says Matt, because his nerves are so alight that most of his extra sensing is drowning in the feel of Frank Castle’s closeness. It’s as if his lips are overwhelming the rest of the ways he senses everything externally; it’s as if there’s nothing more important at the moment than Frank’s body, and honestly — if there is, at the moment, Matt wants it shot twice and served on a bagel for breakfast next morning.

“Is that a suggestion, Red?” Frank’s voice is a dirty slow drag, a drawn-out mumble across a concrete floor. It’s half a tease, except that Matt can feel the heat emanating from Frank’s skin. “No goddamn idea the things I’d do to you.”

“Got my own list,” Matt tells him, before gently tugging at Frank’s bottom lip with his teeth. He runs both palms down Frank’s broad chest - feeling the tension in Frank’s muscles, the shiver in his abs: something burning and ready for release - and stops with his fingers hooked into the waist of Frank’s jeans. He’s making the Punisher _pant,_ and there’s something deeply hot about that. “Think you’d like to come inside?”

“Better than coming out here.” Frank’s voice is _filthy_ as he palms Matt through his pants, one brief strong press before the hand slides back to his waist. The noise Matt makes at it should be embarrassing, but Matt is quickly finding he doesn’t give a single fuck. 

Matt wants to shove Frank up against the wall and grind until they’re both breathless, but apartment buildings usually have rules against this kind of thing. He reluctantly pulls away, finds the doorknob, pulls out his keys. “Welcome, be my guest,” he says, opening the door and gesturing.

Frank pulls him inside, a little rough - just like Matt likes - and then Frank’s hot mouth is on his again, devouring, demanding. “Don’t believe this shit is what got you all worked up,” he mumbles into Matt’s mouth.

“Well,” Matt says as he licks his way down Frank’s neck. “I mean, they already think we have. Might as well.”

“Might as well?” Frank’s mouth burns a mark just under Matt’s ear. “If that’s all that’s been stoppin’ you--”

“Please stop talking and take your clothes off,” Matt tells him, and tugs Frank down the hall in the direction of his bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [what is a skeleton's favorite snack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2hgyyfz0WU)
> 
> yell at me about this bullshit on tumble ([sevdrag](https://sevdrag.tumblr.com/))

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on [tumblr](https://sevdrag.tumblr.com/) i take anons but i am not taking questions over this fic
> 
> you can also help me out at [dreamwidth](https://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/428417.html) for your additional needs


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